Over-the-top (“OTT”) content services are services that deliver content over the Internet without involvement of multiple system operators in the control or distribution of the content. OTT content services are becoming increasingly popular, particularly in video content distribution through streaming video services such as NETFLIX, HULU, AMAZON VIDEO, and the like. Traditional cable and satellite service providers have felt the impact of these streaming video services on their market share and for this reason are investigating ways to offer their own OTT content services.
Mobile telecommunications service providers, such as AT&T, are in a unique position to offer mobile streaming OTT video services. For these services to be successful, mobile telecommunications service providers must optimize customer experience quality, particularly with regard to a metric known as video rebuffering frequency (“VRF”). VRF is the frequency with which video is rebuffered. OTT streaming video is supported via hypertext transfer protocol (“HTTP”) (i.e., Web) over transfer control protocol (“TCP”) (i.e., OTT Video). A video rebuffering action will be triggered when TCP throughput is lower than the playback rate due to some capacity reduction and/or network impairment events, such as packet loss and reordering. The video playback will pause and wait for new video data, which triggers video rebuffering. Video rebuffering can lead to decreased quality of experience (“QoE”) for users and might result in greater user churn.